Rigging Monkey
by JayBird45
Summary: Several years after the latest Young Samurai stories take place, a Portuguese ship is headed for Japan - and among the crew is a young English sailor going by the name of Jesse Fletcher, who claims to be searching for his brother and father who were lost at sea. Because, as it says in Ring of Wind, girls make the best pirates!
1. Chapter 1

*This is just an opening bit... May well continue it for a laugh XD *

The yard lurches and I grab for the rope above my head, gritting my teeth as it cuts into my palm. Between my legs, the wood is slick with rain, and below the sea boils, iron grey.

"Jesse!" Francesco there on the rigging, his hair plastered against his face. "Come back!"

The ship lurches again, and this time I almost fall, biting back a scream. My heart beats so fast and my head is spinning, but I crawl back along the yard and Francesco grabs my shirt, yells into my ear.

"Stupid English boy! You'll kill yourself!"

As we climb back down to the deck, my arms are shaking and the rain is so heavy I can hardly see. And it is a run across to the hatches, down into the belly of the ship where Francesco and I live and we can wait out the storm.

Outside, the noise is deafening, but it is no less as we make it below, wet to the skin and shivering. The other sailors sit around their tables, some trying to eat, many praying. One man is huddled in the corner retching and holding a bucket.

Me, I cannot stay here. I tug at my shirt, pull it away from my skin, and push down the deck, down towards where the other boys will be, shouting and wrestling and trying to pretend the storm doesn't frighten them.

Nino grabs at my sleeve. "Hey, Jesse, slow down. Is it bad out there?"

"I need to change. I'm cold." I hunch over the sea chest that we boys all share, digging through for a clean shirt that will fit me, and stay facing the wall as I pull off one soaking sleeve, pull on one dry one. It seems long ago that I could change my clothes freely, like the others do. When the sun shines, they swagger around bare-chested like savages, and they take pride in their wiry muscles and bronze skin.

Not me.

Although Nino is laughing as if the sea is calm like a millpond, the others are easier to read. Lucia has his rosary in his hands, muttering something under his breath which I know to be a prayer. They call me a heretic, but I cannot understand why they need beads to pray, or a man to hear their confession.

"Is it bad?" Nino asks again.

I shrug. "It's bad."

"Why do you worry?" Juan elbows Lucia and little Paulo, whose face is the colour of chalk. "The Portuguese have the best sailors in the world! If we can't get through this storm, no-one can."

I snort. "The Portuguese aren't the best. The English have reached Japan too."

Juan rolls his eyes. "Sorry, boys, I forgot. The fabled _Alexandria_, of course."

"Stop it!" I kick him beneath the table, and he winces. "My father and Jack did reach Japan!"

"Oh, aye, and they got through Magellen's Pass?" Juan's face contorts into a sneer. "You're living on fairy tales, English boy."

"The English are better sailors than anyone else!" I have to raise my voice again as the wind howls and the waves slam against the sides of the ship. "Who's the best rigging monkey out of us?"

Little Paulo grins. "You!"

He likes Juan even less than I do.

"Who's the best at knots?" I continue. "Who learns fastest? Who climbs highest?"

Nino shakes his head a little. "Leave it, Jesse. You've made your point."

I stick out my tongue at Juan and hold out an arm to wrestle. After all, I need to show him that I'm as good as him. Better. Not because I'm so proud of my English blood, and not because I hate him.

Because that's what boys do.

And I have to be a boy now.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, I wake from a dream of damp fields and reaching skies to the sound of a man's yelling in my ear.

"UP ALL HAMMOCKS AHOY!"

Even over the storm, it pierces into the fug of sleep, and I roll out of the hammock, shivering as the blankets drop to the floor. I don't know how I fell asleep last night. Not when the rain was so fierce and the wind howling like a ghost trapped here on earth.

"Jesse!" Nino grabbed my arm. "Come on, hurry up!"

"What's happening?" My head is fuggy with sleep.

"The ship's going down." His face is pale under the tan. "We're going down."

"What?" Our ship, our brave little ship, which had come through Magellen's pass, which had taken cannon shot and bared searing heat, was sinking?

"Come on!"

We run. We run fast and strong, and the soles of my feet sting as they slap against the damp planks, itch as splinters pierce the thick skin. There is no time to think, only act.

Above decks, the weather is as wild as before, maybe worse, rain sheeting down and the wind tearing away the shouts across the sea. I can hardly see any further than a few feet in front, to where Nino is running over to the rail, calling something to me. The other boys... I cannot see the other boys, I cannot see Francesco, I cannot see any of them, I can only see the black of the midnight sky and a scared face, the mouth open and the eyes wild with fear.

"JESSE!"

It is Nino shouting again, but suddenly his words, the Portuguese words which I have spent these past two years learning, make no sense to me, and I can hear only English in my head, my own thoughts spiralling and twisting.

I'm not going to reach Japan.

I'm not going to see Father again.

I'm never going to see Jack either.

The ship jolts and I fall, my hip juddering against the deck and my legs sprawling. The breath is sucked away from my lungs.

"Jesse, move!" Hands hauling me upwards, hands I don't know. "Come on." Something – wood – shoved into my arms. "We have to jump."

Suddenly, I can speak again. "I can't swim."

"We're not far from the shore. The ship went too far into the shallows. We'll be fine."

And then the hand pulls me, and I'm running again, and we jump, away from the drowning ship, our drowning home, and into the boiling sea. Water closes over my head, and I open my mouth to scream, the salt making me gag.

And then back into the rain again, and Nino is beside me, beside me in the water. "Jesse? We have to swim. Come on!"

Other men are jumping now, all around us. I hear one splash which is very small, and Little Paulo's head appears, gasping for air like a fish taken from the sea. The other boys are here.

We are all here.

The water has seeped into my bones, frozen the life from them, but I find that I can still kick. As my eyes stream and my arms shake, I kick, as hard as I can. Away from the wreck and the storm. Away to safety.


End file.
